| keywords | title | layout | category |
|---|---|---|---|
chat, agent, setup |
New Operator Training Guide |
../views/_help_article.jade |
guide |
Use this guide to quickly become the most knowledgeable and productive chat operator on your team.
It is broken into 4 parts:
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- The chat console interface (chat.olark.com)
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- Your Olark account dashboard (olark.com/dashboard)
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- Your organization’s Olark settings
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- Do these 5 things before your first chat
Read it through fully at least once, and then make sure to bookmark it for quick reference when you’re chatting with customers.
Open chat.olark.com in a new tab so you can follow along visually as we explain the chat console section by section.
When you log in to chat.olark.com, you always start off set to away/offline (“Not Accepting New Chats”) and the background will be a dark purple.
Click on the button in the top left that says “Not Accepting New Chats” to set yourself to available/online. The button text will change to “Accepting New Chats” and the background color will change to a bright sky blue. (Pro Tip: If you get a bunch of difficult chats at once, set yourself to “Not Accepting New Chats” so that you can focus on finishing the chats you have open.)
The gear icon next to that contains several settings, the most important of which is your Alert Sound which you’ll hear every time a visitor sends you a message.
Related: How to set up visual desktop notifications
Related: If you don’t respond to a visitor’s message within 5 minutes, you will automatically be forced away so you don’t miss any more chats.
- Recent Conversations: Visitors who you recently chatted with
- Operators: The other chat operators from your organization who are currently logged in to chat.olark.com. Click on an operator’s name to chat with them. (NOTE: Operator-to-operator conversations are not stored in your chat transcripts.)
- Visitors: The people currently on your site. Click on a visitor’s name to start a chat with them.
Related: See all the (other) ways you can proactively initiate chats with visitors
This is what it looks like when you receive (or initiate) your first chat:
Displayed at the top of every new message is the visitor’s current URL (the page they’re currently on), referrer URL (the page they just came from), and other details.
Type your reply at the bottom and hit “Enter” to send, just like you would with any other chat app.
You can manually end a chat with a visitor by either (A) closing the tab, or (2) using the “!end” command. Both you and the customer will receive an inline notification from Olark saying that the chat is over.
⇒ Learn more about ending a chat
If you want to become a productivity superhero, then check out these two features:
Commands: These pre-defined typed commands allow you to perform all kinds of useful actions while you’re chatting with customers.
- Want to transfer a chat to another chat agent? Just type in “!transfer”
- Want to pull up the transcript URL for the current chat? Just type in “!transcript”
- Want to let the customer know the chat is over? Just type in “!end”
- Here’s a full list of all the commands you can use: Commands Guide
If you prefer clicking to typing, you can click the “Actions” button to bring up a list of commands.
Shortcuts: Save time by not having to type out the same things over and over. For example…
- Type “;hi” which automatically expands to “Hi, how can I help you? :)”
- Type “;bye” which automatically expands to “Have a wonderful day!”
- Type “;help” which automatically expands to “https://www.olark.com/help”
- Learn how to set up Shortcuts here: Shortcuts Guide
Olark’s technical magic allows you to see visitors’ details like their:
- Browser (e.g. Chrome or Firefox)
- Operating System (e.g. Windows or Mac)
- Approximate Geolocation (based on their IP address)
You can also see a visitor’s Name, Email, and Phone Number, but only if your organization has the prechat survey enabled OR if your company’s developers used our API to display visitor insights in the chat console.
You can also see the URLs of all the pages on your website that your visitor has visited (since the chat started), in reverse chronological order.
Open olark.com in a new tab so you can follow along visually as we explain your account dashboard section by section.
Olark saves all of the chats you (and your coworkers) have ever had and stores them in the Transcripts section of your account for you to review later.
Each chat transcript has a unique URL, which you can see after clicking on an individual transcript.
If you experience issues with Olark while chatting with customers, come start a chat with us at olark.com and let us know the transcript URLs of any chats that were affected. They will help us immensely in helping you.
⇒ Learn more about Transcripts
If your organization has chat ratings enabled, then your visitors will be able to rate their experience with you at the end of the chat, and the Reports section is where you can view their feedback.
Unlike with Transcripts, where you can view transcripts across your entire organization (including other chat agents’ conversations), in Reports you will only be able to view your own chat ratings i.e. from the customers you chatted with.
⇒ Learn more about Chat Ratings
You can access your profile by clicking “Operators” at the top or by clicking your name in the top right and then clicking “Profile”.
Your “display name” is the name that your visitors will see. Visitors will never see your username, only your display name.
You can also add a square photo (size should be 100x100 pixels) of yourself, which will be displayed alongside the first message you send to every visitor.
Clicking on Settings will take you to your Shortcuts page, where you can view your own Personal Shortcuts, edit them, delete them, or add new ones.
You can also view your shared Team Shortcuts, but only the Olark admin of your organization can change them.
As a non-admin chat operator, you have the ability to:
- View chat transcripts (for all chat operators)
- View chat ratings (for yourself only)
- Edit your personal shortcuts
Related: Admin-only accounts
However, there are many settings and configurations that the admin of your organization’s Olark account has set up, which you can’t control but should still be aware of.
Early on, make sure to ask your Admin the following:
- What CRM integration are we using, if any?
- What kind of chat routing (i.e. All Operators or Round Robin) are we using?
- Do we have a chat limit set, and if so what is it?
- Do we have Chat Ratings set up to get feedback from customers?
- Do we have any Targeted Chat rules set up?
- Do we have a Greeter set up?
- Do we have an Offline Message set up?
- Do we have any Groups set up, and do I belong to any of them?
- Set your display name and op photo in your Profile
- Choose an alert sound (via the gear icon in chat.olark.com)
- Set up desktop notifications
- Create some shortcuts for yourself
- Familiarize yourself with important commands like !transfer, !transcript, !end, !send, and !see
If you have any questions, message us via the Olark chat box in the lower right. We're here to help :)
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